Shoko Asahara

Shoko Asahara (2 March 1955-) was the founder of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult and terrorist group in Japan that carried out the Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995, which killed 12 people.

Biography
Chizuo Matusmoto was born on 2 March 1955 in Yatsuhiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan to a large family of poor mat makers. He had infantile glaucoma and became blind in his left eye and nearly blind in his right, and he was enrolled in a school for the blind. In 1977 he graduated and turned to the study of Chinese medicine, and in 1981 he was fined 200,000 yen for selling unregulated drugs in hopes of supporting his family. Around this time, he began to experiment with his faith, practicing Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity's esoteric branches, and in 1987 he changed his name to "Shoko Asahara". In 1989, after an appeal, he had his new cult Aum Shinrikyo recognized as a religion. It was based on Vajrayana Buddhist scriptures and the Bible, and he identified with the "Lamb of God" and "Christ". He said that Jews, the Dutch, Freemasons, rival Japanese religions, and the British House of Windsor were behind several conspiracies, and he said that World War III would arrive with nuclear armageddon. While Asahara was invited to speak at many university functions as a speaker, some lawyers saw through his group and noticed that he was dangerous, but the government refused to listen to their warnings.

Asahara became known for various acts of violence, being blamed for the sarin gas attack in the "Matsumoto incident" of 27-28 June 1994 that killed 8 people and wounded 200 as well as the murder of a lawyer, his wife, and child by Aum Shinrikyo due to his opposition to the cult. On 20 March 1995 members of his Aum Shinrikyo cult used sarin gas to attack the Tokyo subway, killing 13 people and wounding thousands more. On 16 May he was arrested in an isolated room of the headquarters facility of Aum Shinrikyo, and on 27 February 2004 he was sentenced to death by hanging. However, his death sentence was constantly appealed and delayed, and in 2012 his execution was again postponed due to the continued arrests of Aum Shinrikyo members.